National Roundup

Illinois
Man accused in fatal stabbing of Chicago woman denied bond
CHICAGO (AP) — A man accused of fatally stabbing a Chicago drug store employee as she stocked shelves was ordered held without bond Wednesday by a Cook County judge who deems him a threat to the community.

Olga Marie Calderon, 32, the mother of two, was grabbed around the neck by Sincere Williams early Sunday at a Walgreens store and stabbed several times as she tried to push him away.

Cook County prosecutors told Judge Arthur Wesley Willis they weren’t sure what was behind the attack by Williams, 18.

“He did not take anything in this case and when you look at the video, it does show him walk straight to the victim and then viciously attack her, “ said Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy. “I cannot give you, as I sit here, a definitive motive other than the fact that sometimes people just do evil things.”

Surveillance cameras captured Williams entering the Walgreens wearing a red face mask, bright orange Chicago Bears hoodie and dark jeans, prosecutors said. The suspect allegedly forced Calderon against a check-out counter, stabbing her in the face, neck, chest, back and right hand. She died at the scene.

Murphy noted Williams was wearing two layers of clothes, removing the outer layer as he left the store.

Authorities said investigators reviewed private and city surveillance cameras to track Williams back to the apartment complex where he lives with is mother. Williams didn’t take anything from the store and detectives found the knife and clothing he discarded.

Williams is also believed to have robbed the same Walgreens four days before the fatal attack, authorities said. He hasn’t been charged for that crime.

Assistant Public Defender Chris Anderson said Williams suffered from schizophrenia. Willis noted Williams’ apparent mental illness, but ordered him held without bail.


Illinois
Police chief fired over online post ‘in poor taste’
ORLAND HILLS, Ill. (AP) — A suburban Chicago police chief has been fired over a social media post.

Longtime Orland Hills Chief Thomas Scully was fired Wednesday after a post on his personal Facebook page that village leaders said was could not be tolerated.

WBBM-TV  reports the post is composed of a meme that reads, “Looting… when free housing, free food, and free education just aren’t enough.”

“We hold all of our public officials to the highest standards in their personal and professional lives in Orland Hills,” the village said. “This social media post is in incredibly poor taste. It does not reflect the values of the people of our community, and we will not tolerate such behavior from any of our public officials.”

Orland Hills’ deputy chief will take over until the village finds a permanent replacement for Scully.

Scully served as chief for 15 years.

Maryland
City to pay $900K to settle public housing lawsuit
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — The City Council in Annapolis, Maryland, has approved a $900,000 settlement in a federal race discrimination case that involved public housing.

The Capital Gazette reported Wednesday that the city will pay 15 families. The amount includes the plaintiff’s attorneys fees and costs.

The plaintiffs claimed that the local housing authority failed to provide safe and adequate housing for its majority-Black residents. The plaintiffs claimed that they endured hazardous living conditions that amounted to racial discrimination and a violation of their civil rights.

The agreement also contains various provisions. They include a requirement that the city inspect and license housing authority properties, which is something the city has been doing since last year.

The city is not admitting to any wrongdoing. And it will pay the settlement with money from its self-insurance fund.

Nevada
Trump campaign asks judge to kill vote-by-mail law
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Attorneys for President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign are urging a federal judge in Las Vegas to block a state law and prevent mail-in ballots from going to all active Nevada voters less than eight weeks before the Nov. 3 elections and amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The campaign argues in documents filed Tuesday in a bid to keep the lawsuit alive that it is hurt by the state law passed in July by the Democrat-led Legislature because it forces Republicans to divert resources to “educating Nevada voters on those changes and encouraging them to still vote.”

Thea McDonald, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, declined to comment Thursday about the lawsuit. Attorneys for the state did not immediately respond to messages.

The Trump campaign argues that sending ballots to nearly 1.7 million active voters in Nevada will impede Republicans’ ability to elect candidates “because the law will ‘confuse’ their voters and ‘create incentive’ to stay away from the polls.”

The 16-page filing was an answer to Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske’s motion last month to throw out the lawsuit filed by the Trump campaign, Republican National Committee and state Republicans.

Cegavske, also a Republican, opposed the law as unaffordable before it passed the Democrat-led Legislature in July. The lawsuit targeted her as the state’s top elections official. The office of state Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat, is defending the law in court.

Nevada argues that the Trump campaign and Republicans don’t have legal standing to take the case to court and have failed to explain how they’d be harmed. The state also argues that Republicans do not support their “nebulous argument that (the state law) increases the likelihood of voter fraud.”

The Democratic National Committee and state Democrats are seeking to join the lawsuit, and attorneys from around the country on both sides have applied to take part.

Defenders of the vote-by-mail plan note that another federal judge in Nevada rejected a challenge against the use of mail-in ballots during Nevada’s primary elections in June.

They characterize the state law as a modest change to address the dangers of voting in-person during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trump, who has acknowledged voting absentee by mail himself in the past, has repeatedly attacked what he terms “universal mail-in voting” as unsafe and a soft target for fraud and interference.

“With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history,” he tweeted July 30.

Senior U.S. District Judge James Mahan has not scheduled hearings ahead of a decision on Democrats’ requests to intervene, or Cegavske’s request to dismiss the lawsuit.